The British and Irish governments must "minimise" the effects of the Ulster Unionist Party's threat to pull out of the power-sharing Executive by pressing ahead with the implementation of the Belfast Agreement, a senior Sinn Féin figure has urged.
The leading republican at a special press briefing in Belfast also indicated that the IRA would not meet the Ulster Unionist Council's demand that it disband and disarm by the council's imposed deadline of January 18th.
Asked would the IRA acquiesce to the UUP demand he responded: "The strategy that we are involved in, which is about making politics work, has the ability to bring an end to the armed groups, including the IRA.
"Clearly no thinking person wants to live in a society that has armed groups with all that that means for everyone."
But he rhetorically asked: "Will the stance of Saturday's Ulster Unionist Council bring that about, what do you think yourself?"
The senior Sinn Féin politician also appeared surprisingly sanguine about the Ulster Unionist Party's ultimatum and seemed resigned to the UUP ministers withdrawing from the Executive in January.
In such an eventuality the Northern Secretary, Dr Reid, would be faced with suspending the institutions and then calling Assembly elections or possibly even avoiding an election because politics could be so deadlocked.
The Sinn Féin source said irrespective of what happened in January, in the meantime key elements of the agreement relating to issues such as policing, demilitarisation, human rights and the Irish language must be driven forward by the two governments.
He indicated, however, that it could take a year or more before both unionists and nationalists were again fully sharing power.
He said Sinn Féin was trying to approach the prospective crisis "in a fairly balanced way", and added, "I think we can sort all of this out, but I am very much of the view that it cannot any longer be sorted out on unionist terms."
The British and Irish governments should now meet all the parties in a formal way. A partnership of pro-agreement parties, even if Ulster Unionists were outside of that grouping, was the way forward.
"I don't think unionism is up for that at the moment and the rest of us can't wait, and the process has to proceed."
In the interim Sinn Féin and other Yes parties "will do our best to create a circumstance where unionists will be prepared to engage".
As other republicans have been doing in recent weeks the source also hinted that Sinn Féin would in the short to medium term join the Policing Board.
He talked about new policing legislation that was moving towards Patten rather than, as heretofore, legislation that fully corresponded with the Patten proposals.
